Research at Rutgers

Rutgers’ $712 million in annual research and development expenditures place us among the nation’s top public universities. Rutgers' R&D expenditures exceed those of all other New Jersey colleges and universities combined.

Research with Impact

In clinics and centers, in labs and libraries, in the field and across the globe, our faculty and students create knowledge, advance economic progress, improve lives, and enrich our humanity.

The Pursuit and the Reward

Thousands of Rutgers researchers are engaged daily in the deep and thoughtful task of investigation. Armed with creativity, patience, perception, and insight, they uncover new facts, advancing the world's understanding of itself. Below are a few of the many fields in which Rutgers is pursuing this prize of knowledge.

Rutgers’ WINLAB is home to the world’s largest open-access lab for testing new wireless technology. A WINLAB-led team is working to develop MobilityFirst, a future internet design optimized for mobile networking and communication.

Rutgers Research Leadership

Innovation in Childhood Studies

The nation’s first Ph.D. program in childhood studies is found at Rutgers. The Department of Childhood Studies is unique in the nation for its methodological study of children and childhood in historical, multicultural, and global contexts.

RUCDR Infinite Biologics, the world’s largest repository of its kind, is a key national center for the study of genetics and mental health, drug abuse, alcoholism, diabetes, and digestive and kidney diseases.

Rutgers Research Leadership

Studying the Genetic Defects in Cancer Cells

Led by Hatem Sabaawy, investigators at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey's zebrafish laboratory use models of the fish to map the common genetic defects in cancer, identify new small molecules for targeted treatment, and predict each cancer patient's response to therapy in precision medicine trials.

Rutgers Research Leadership

Nutrition and Health at the Forefront

Rutgers stands out in nutrition research and education, with centers for childhood nutrition, digestive health, exercise, and lipids. Housed in a new 79,700-square-foot building, the New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health focuses on issues such as obesity and its associated diseases.

The researchers of tomorrow are being trained at Rutgers’ Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience. The center’s 11 research teams, including the Infancy Studies Laboratory, are at the forefront of neuroscience research.

Rutgers Research Leadership

Find Out How We Find Out

From sweet strawberries to plastic bridges, schizophrenia diagnosis to paddleboarding, get a peek inside our laboratories and meet our scientists with research videos from Rutgers Today.

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Part of America’s Research Engine

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is entrenched in a culture of research, innovation, and invention that is a hallmark of the American academic experience.

A member of the Association of American Universities

Of the thousands of institutions of higher learning in North America, only 62 are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU). This selective group of leading research universities is recognized for the quality and scope of its research and educational programs. Rutgers University–New Brunswick is the only public New Jersey university in the AAU (fellow Garden State school Princeton is also a member).

A member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance

Rutgers University–New Brunswick is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, a consortium of first-tier research universities, such as the University of Wisconsin–Madison and University of Michigan, that shares knowledge and best practices and pools resources and buying power to strengthen higher education and support research endeavors. Alliance universities conduct $10 billion in funded research each year.

A land-grant institution

Rutgers is one of the nation’s original land-grant institutions, in the company of other land-grants such as Cornell, Ohio State, and Penn State. The Morrill Act of 1862 designated these institutions to serve the states and their citizens by disseminating practical knowledge developed at key institutions of higher learning. From an early emphasis on agriculture and the mechanical arts, the land-grant mission of Rutgers, like that of fellow institutions, has expanded to include a broad range of teaching, research, and service activities.